Runic boss Max Schaefer has told PC Gamer that its dungeon crawler Torchlight has been downloaded over 5 million times in certain Asian territories but that the company sees it as promotion for its upcoming massively multiplayer title based on the game.

“Millions and millions of copies of Torchlight [were] downloaded from the illicit market in certain Asian territories. And that’s fine with us,” said Schaefer.

“We knew it was gonna happen. For us, we kind of see it as, down the road, we’re building an audience. We’ve long since announced that we’re going to be doing an MMO, and y’know, we kind of view it as a marketing tool for us.

“We’re going to have millions of people who are familiar with our franchise, familiar with our style, and who are going to be ready customers when we do a global MMO,” he concluded.

Runic’s Torchlight MMO was announced two years ago but took a backseat as the studio began work on Torchlight II. The sequel comes to PC this winter.